The health authorities warn, through a spot that makes therapies without evidence ridiculous, how these practices can be sold as “simple solutions to complex health problems, taking advantage of the population’s ignorance.”
The Government resumes the plan against pseudotherapies and warns against ‘cupping’, aromatherapy and other treatments
The Ministry of Health has launched a new campaign against pseudotherapies to raise awareness of how important it is to “distinguish between treatments supported by scientific studies and practices that, despite being popular, lack proven effectiveness.”
Through an advertisement, which takes these therapies to the extreme of ridiculousness – a white scarf, a few drops of lemon or a raspberry suit –, Health wants to show how pseudotherapies “are presented as simple solutions to complex health problems, appealing to emotions and taking advantage of the population’s lack of knowledge of scientific issues,” says the Ministry in a press release. All of this, continues Mónica García’s team, has a health risk because it can lead people to “abandon or postpone proven medical treatments.”
Health has also launched a website with reliable sources of information and requests that “if you have any questions about a treatment or remedy, you always consult with accredited health professionals.” “Unlike real medicines and health products, which must go through rigorous studies and evaluations to demonstrate their quality, safety and effectiveness, pseudotherapies lack objective controls,” recalls the Ministry.
The crusade of the health authorities against pseudotherapies began in 2018, when the Ministry of Health was in the hands of the PSOE. Then the Government prohibited by royal decree that doctors – neither in public nor in private healthcare – used homeopathic products in their consultations. A few years later, in 2021, the Ministry began to publish a series of reports that evaluated the effectiveness of specific therapies within a plan called #coNtest.
In April, the current team released its conclusions on eight other techniques, including aromatherapy,cupping –or vacuum therapy, consisting of the application of cups, usually made of glass or plastic, heated to the skin or using other cupping techniques – or tai chi. The report on homeopathy, one of the most anticipated, has remained up in the air.
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